A principled foundation
Microsoft employs a principled approach in our work with innovation and emerging technologies. Principles offer guidance on how to act when it’s not always obvious. They help us make decisions that won’t just satisfy the demands of the moment but will endure through future situations and scrutiny. For instance, since 2016, Microsoft’s Trusted Cloud principles have given millions of partners and customers reassurance about how their data is secured and stored on our servers. Likewise, Microsoft developed responsible AI principles to help us build AI tools that will benefit people and empower them to do more.
The same principled approach is found with Microsoft ACTS, our Advanced Cloud Transparency Services initiative. Using Microsoft’s existing principles as a foundation, we took the next step—we developed ACTS principles to further guide us in meaningful collaborations with partners, governments, and institutions throughout the world. These principles express what we value and consider the backbone of our work—to help governments increase their effectiveness and gain public trust through transparency solutions.
Ready to learn, collaborate, and lead
As ACTS continues to roll out and employ emerging technologies that can bring positive change, the potential these tools represent is immense. No one can fully understand all the implications of this technology, which will grow and evolve as it’s used. Everyone will be challenged to understand the new technologies and manage them in ways that will benefit and enhance our lives. Our teams want a future that aligns with our principles. We think deeply about the future to anticipate potential new applications of technology and their consequences.
In a blog post written by Microsoft President Brad Smith, “Meeting the AI moment: advancing the future through responsible AI,” he emphasizes the “profound sense of responsibility” brought on by these new technologies and our need to listen and learn more. ACTS will participate in and bring expertise to help encourage discussion about how everyone will use and continually develop these technologies—so they lead to desirable outcomes. Together, we can define the guardrails for the use of new AI tools and technology. It will be an ongoing learning process that will evolve and grow, much like AI-based technology. Collaboration and insight gained through public-private partnership can be a key part of that effort.
“This is a time when we can leap forward in terms of what technology can do for people, what AI can do for our customers, what we can do to lead our industry,”
Brad Smith
President of Microsoft
Working together to shape the future
ACTS was launched in 2020 as a moon shot—a belief that Microsoft could leverage our technology and expertise to help governments accelerate transparency and curb corruption throughout the world. We’re committed to leading with technology—but also holding important conversations about how to develop and use these new tools. Using our principles as a guide, we will continue to deepen our relationships with civil society, academia, government, and industry peers to help shape a future with AI. Today, no one can say what that future will look like, but Microsoft and ACTS will always be guided by principles that people can understand and trust.
Learn more about Microsoft ACTS and our work with AI and other emerging technologies.